More news about UOSE has been revealed and posted on the General News section of UO Stratics -

(a) Map of Tokuno Islands - HERE. Apparently, "Yes, this is a paper map and it will be included in the box. On the back of the map is a selection of Haikus that were submitted for the contest as well as information about Samurai and Ninjas" (according to Swamp Thing on the same thread).

A larger version of the map can be found on the FCB website - HERE, where you can see more clearly the references to of Fan Dancer Dojo (Dungeon), Valley of the Sleeping Dragons and the Yomotsu Mines (Dungone)

(3) Ninja Abilities - see HERE and HERE My impression is that the Ninja abilities are heavily skewed towards a weapon skill and stealth. Wilki EA also said in that thread that the new UOSE website "should be up soon".

(4) On FYI HERE, it is stated that Publish 28 will be after the release of UOSE :

<blockquote>By now you are probably aware that we've been rolling out live publishes about once a month. However, because the Live Team is preparing for the launch of Ultima Online Samurai Empire, there will be a longer span of time between Publish 27 and Publish 28. We will provide more information about the launch date of Publish 28 after Samurai Empire is released.

Currently most of the Live Team resources are allocated towards optimizing shard resource usage to help reduce lag at launch. We should see the benefits of this work beyond launch as well, as it should further smooth out normal gameplay, and help things run better during EM events as well.

Over at MarkeeDragons, there is a gallery of UOSE Beta screenshots (I assume the Non Disclosure Agreement was lifted for Markee, since he/they attended the Community Day function - The NDA still applies to all Beta testers, except for those that attended the function). The gallery can be found HERE.

Here is a selection of a few images, which I found interesting (all are found at Markee Dragon) :

On the Developer Feedback section of UO Stratics , Leurocian discusses possible changes to "Big Fish" (and "Big Fish Trophies"), possible fixes to bugs with the Curse Spell and Strength buffing effects and Hanse hints that "There's something under the logo on this map that you cannot see. It's something I added for you to place a house on. Good luck on the scramble to get there, when Samurai Empire is opened on your shard!"

Good to see the UO Stratics Forum back up (it was down the past few days). Posted on the General News section of UO Stratics :

<blockquote>Thanks to our Network Administrators, the UO Stratics Forums are back up and ready for everyone to begin posting in again! Thank you very much for your patience as we worked through this.

~Joshua Rowan
UO Stratics Managing Editor</blockquote>

There appears to be some issues with players who pre-ordered UOSE from Amazon.com - apparently Amazon.com was going to give out one Soul Stone code per customer, irrespective of the number of boxes ordered. This should not be the case. See this thread HERE. This prompted Wilki to post the following :

<blockquote>I was just made aware of this problem this morning, and sent it up the chain of command. It should be one Soulstone per SE box, not per customer. </blockquote>

<blockquote>The 5 winners of the Beta server load test held last week have been notifed via the email address associated with the account they were using during the Beta server load test. If you participated in the UO:SE Beta server load test, please check your email to see if you are one of the lucky winners! </blockquote>

ADDED : Over HERE, you can read about Nevyn's Community Day Experiences - he's one of the individuals who attended UO Community Day function. Here's an example of his write up :

<blockquote>Talanithus, Nieves, Sunsword, and I spent quite a bit of time talking about various topics. It was refreshing to hear that he thought that UO:R's concept and execution were both bad ideas (he gave the strong implication that it was mandated by higher execs), and that AoS item properties were a bad thing (although we all have to admit that they are here to stay...the only path is to balance out their availability/impact) for the most part designed and eveloped before Sunsword returned to OSI/EA. We spent quite a bit of time talking about player-generated content, a la NeverWinter Nights. While Sunsword did not agree with the widely held theory that player-generated content is the future of MMOGs, it was by his responses obviously something that has been thought about a lot</blockquote>

Here's the latest UOHOC Chat Log (thanks to Xenomage) - focussing on UOSE (Parts in Bold are my personal editing, highlighting the parts I think are of particular interest, in my opinion) :

<blockquote>19:02] &lt;Brekkee&gt; Good evening and welcome to another great Stratics House of Commons chat, tonight our guests are the developers of Ultima Online! Tonight’s topic is Samurai Empire so please keep your questions related to the expansion.

[19:02] &lt;Brekkee&gt; Please send your questions to [QT]Calelena or [QT]Gowel - to do so type /query NICK and type in the window that pops up. Questions sent to me or the developers will not make it into the lineup, so don't bother. Full logs of the chat will be up on http://uo.stratics.com shortly after the chat.

[19:02] &lt;Brekkee&gt; We'll start with a brief introduction from the developers, now would be a good time to send those questions.

[19:05] &lt;Brekkee&gt; *Lone`Shadow* With it taking 300 skill points to have Ninjitsu, stealth, hiding... Giving people very limited heal and mana regen/stam regen options. Is there any consider of something like 100ninja/100 stealth will grant a gm hiding bonus. Since you still have to train hiding up to 80 in order to stealth, or is there other plans to fix the issue?
[19:05] &lt;Oaks&gt; As the beta continues and we playtest internally, we are considering ways to address the healing issue for the cramped Ninja template. We are well aware of the issue and will address it as necessary.

[19:06] &lt;Brekkee&gt; *Giger* Will there be any updates to the game play interface with UO:SE?
[19:08] &lt;Niobe&gt; We did not focus on dramatic changes to the interfaces on UO:SE. However, the guild system changes includes quite a few improvements to the guild system interfaces.

[19:09] &lt;Brekkee&gt; *Ravenspyre* We know that there are going t be stealable artifacts for SE, but will there be minor or major arties for SE like weapons and armor, such as a daisho?
[19:10] &lt;Oaks&gt; We don't have any minor or major artifacts planned with the release of Samurai Empire... just rares of the new items.
[19:10] &lt;Leurocian&gt; However, the live team just might have to add some really cool....
[19:10] &lt;Leurocian&gt; After Samurai Empire release.

[19:11] &lt;Brekkee&gt; *Snippa* Last I read, there was a samurai ability that increased damage by 100%, if I'm correct... under the right conditions, this could allow 1 hit kills... has this been tested at all? also, was this intended? and if not, are there any plans to change this before, or perhaps shortly after UO:SE is released?
[19:12] &lt;Oaks&gt; There are several of the new abilities that give impressive damage bonuses, even more than 100% when combined with other abilities. However, a character with good resistances (50+) will not be in danger of a one-hit kill unless they have unusually low hit points.

[19:13] &lt;Brekkee&gt; *Lyria* Will you let Hanse, Oaks and the others out of the dungeon once UOSE is out the door?
[19:13] &lt;Niobe&gt; I'm not sure they want to be let out, they seem to enjoy the gruel.
[19:13] &lt;Niobe&gt;
[19:13] &lt;Oaks&gt; This dungeon is fun!
[19:14] &lt;Leurocian&gt; I want in! I want in!
[19:14] &lt;Oaks&gt; We've pretty much cleaned out the rares though...
[19:14] &lt;Niobe&gt; hahaha
[19:14] * OSI_speedman has joined #straticshoc

[19:14] &lt;Brekkee&gt; *Ktorr* It was mentioned when listing the abilities of the Ninja, that in SE, a player would be able to begin Stealthing immediately after Hiding, that there would no longer be that 10 sec delay before he could use another skill. Will this ability be available to all Stealthers, or only the Ninja Class ?
[19:15] &lt;Oaks&gt; It will be available to all Stealthers! AWYEAH!

[19:15] &lt;Brekkee&gt; *Ktorr* Will there be any new player Quests, (ie. Hag, Naturalist, etc.) associated with SE ?
[19:16] &lt;Niobe&gt; We have a new player directed experience quest for each of the new professions.
[19:16] &lt;Niobe&gt; We also have a small quest that starts in the city of Zento.

[19:16] &lt;Brekkee&gt; *BluGnome* What plans and additions are there for Tinkers in the Samurai Empire expansion?
[19:17] &lt;Niobe&gt; We have added craftable items for just about everyone in this expansion, including stuff for tinkers! (and tailors and cooks and smiths and etc)
[19:17] &lt;Ogel&gt; Tinkers can now enhance their metal weapons with special metals (like the blacksmiths
[19:17] &lt;Ogel&gt; And tinkers can craft weapons with special metals

[19:18] &lt;Brekkee&gt; *Nevyn_UOPG* Are there any plans to remove the ability for Emissaries to promote people from Ronin to Member? Letting them give people the ability to vote (completely circumventing the GM) lets one rogue Emissary flood a guild, taking over even if the rest of the Members strongly like the Guildmaster.
[19:19] &lt;Oaks&gt; If there is an overwhelming need for this, we'll definitely consider it. For now, however, you'll have to invest great trust in your Emissaries.

[19:19] &lt;Brekkee&gt; *unified* Will there be any enhancements to other skills in UO:SE other than new craftables?
[19:19] &lt;OSI_speedman&gt; Yes.

[19:19] &lt;Brekkee&gt; *Bethel_Rose* Speaking of cramped templates, is it true that recalling via runebook will no longer take any mage skill to do successfully if you use a charge? (rumor)
[19:21] &lt;Niobe&gt; You will no longer need to have magery to sucessuflly use a runebook. You will need to have enough mana to cast the spell.
[19:21] &lt;Niobe&gt; Runebooks will still use a charge each time you use them. However, the number of charges has been doubled.

[19:21] &lt;Brekkee&gt; *Rob_D* With the new client for UO:SE, will there be just an improvent of performance, or will some models (player avatars especially) be modified as well?
[19:22] &lt;Niobe&gt; [number of charges a book can hold I mean]
[19:22] &lt;OSI_speedman&gt; There isn't really a "new" client for UO:SE
[19:22] &lt;OSI_speedman&gt; Users of the UO:LBR and UO:TD 3D clients will noticed that the avatars have been changed to the UO:AOS avatars

[19:23] &lt;Brekkee&gt; *JoO* It was said a while back that to fix the Instant disarm/stun bug with wrestling it would take a major overhaul of how damage was given and taken. With the upcoming expansion is there any chance this will be addressed.
[19:23] &lt;Fertbert&gt; It has not been addressed in the expansion, but we may address it in a Live publish. We've been looking into our options for addressing that issue.
[19:24] &lt;Brekkee&gt; *Him* Will there be, as part of guild changes, any guild chat system or even better guild chat and alliance chat triggered with /gu and /al to help bring players together in an easier way than icq and uomap
[19:24] &lt;MrTact&gt; Not as part of this expansion, although that's obviously something we would like to improve.

[19:25] &lt;Brekkee&gt; *Kuja[OES]* I've heard of animal forms for the Ninja that let you run at mount speed off a mount, and even stealthed at these speeds. Will this be looked into? Also, what will prevent people from quickly casting these and running away? Maybe, you cant go into animal form if there are people watching?
[19:26] &lt;OSI_speedman&gt; Yes some higher level animal forms will let you move at mounted speeds without actually being on a mount.
[19:26] &lt;OSI_speedman&gt; And you can stealth while in an animal form
[19:26] &lt;OSI_speedman&gt; And you can even run while stealthing for short periods of time
[19:26] &lt;Oaks&gt; Running in stealth will always reveal you if you run out of steps, however.
[19:26] &lt;OSI_speedman&gt; It'll be challenging

[19:27] &lt;Brekkee&gt; *Teip* Will there be anything done for people coming back to the game, for instance abilty to play old characters? Also will there be more housing areas available?
[19:27] &lt;Oaks&gt; On top of that, we think the Samurai abilities that add a 100% damage bonus will also prevent people from stealth running. Because they'll be dead.
[19:29] &lt;Fertbert&gt; Returning players should generally find that their old character still exist. I'm not certain when the last character wipe occurred, but it was many years ago. There are new housing locations added with the expansion.

[19:29] &lt;Brekkee&gt; *Raven_Lodare* What of new champion spawns, will there be new rewards as well?
[19:29] &lt;Ogel&gt; There's a new Samurai-themed champion spawn with a powerful boss and Samurai-themed rewards
[19:30] &lt;Ogel&gt; and ninja-themed too, of course

[19:30] &lt;Brekkee&gt; *Red_Falcon* Will bowcrafters finally be able to enhance bows/crossbows/etc in UO:SE?
[19:30] &lt;Niobe&gt; We were not able to add enhancing to bows in this expansion unfortunately.
[19:30] &lt;Niobe&gt; However we did add a new type of bow in UO:SE.
[19:31] &lt;Leurocian&gt; However, this is definitely something I would like to see the Live Team tackle when able. Crafting in general needs some love

[19:31] &lt;Brekkee&gt; *C_Talanithus_UOLS* Is there any hope of seeing a toggle switch for blue healing in the new guild system. While some guild wars would hate having blue healing, for most Tram guilds who want to participate in PvP only occassionally... it is a must have!
[19:32] &lt;Fertbert&gt; We are stongly considering adding that toggle in a future Live publish. That feature was a part of the initial guild redesign that just didn't make it into UO:SE.

[19:33] &lt;Brekkee&gt; *Lone`Shadow* Are they are new bows for archers? Anything with shadowstrike or anything cool? What about shurikens are they archery related and what's so special about them?
[19:33] &lt;EvilMantis&gt; Shuriken are not going to be archery related but useable projectiles.
[19:34] &lt;EvilMantis&gt; Using them will count as a swing though, so use wisely

[19:34] &lt;Brekkee&gt; *Bethel_Rose* Will people without the UOSE client be able to see/ride the new tameables?
[19:35] &lt;OSI_speedman&gt; Players who don't upgrade to UO:SE will be able to see the new rideables
[19:35] &lt;OSI_speedman&gt; But they won't be able to ride them
[19:35] &lt;OSI_speedman&gt; Or own them as pets
[19:35] &lt;OSI_speedman&gt; And that Hiryu is powerful!

[19:36] &lt;Brekkee&gt; *BigPapaPeanut* is there anything in SE that we haven't heard before that you can reveal to us today?
[19:37] &lt;Oaks&gt; Maybe there is, and maybe there isn't...
[19:37] &lt;Niobe&gt; One of the things we may or may not have mentioned before are the new origami kits
[19:37] &lt;Niobe&gt; if you find origami paper you'll be able to transform it an interesting shape.
[19:38] &lt;Niobe&gt; Another may be the craftable musical windchimes.
[19:38] &lt;Niobe&gt; And there's probably a ton of things like that you'll just have to discover by playing

[19:39] &lt;Brekkee&gt; *pingo* Is there any changes in the skill gain systems planned? Is the team aware that the guaranteed gain systems does not work?
[19:41] &lt;Leurocian&gt; We have plans to address skill gain in general for an upcoming publish.
[19:41] &lt;Leurocian&gt; And yes, we are aware that GGS is broken passed 115 skill. Speedman has corrected this internally.

[19:41] &lt;Brekkee&gt; *Nevyn_UOPG* When running while stealthed, do you get the same amount of steps you normally would? (i.e. 20 at GM skill)
[19:41] &lt;Oaks&gt; You consume twice as many steps if you run while stealthed.

[19:41] &lt;Brekkee&gt; *Devil_Woman* About running in stealth, is this just in animal form, just for ninjas, or is this just stealth after SE?
[19:41] &lt;OSI_speedman&gt; anyone with stealth can run while stealthed now
[19:42] &lt;OSI_speedman&gt; keep in mind that you cannot auto-stealth when you run out of stealth steps while running
[19:42] &lt;OSI_speedman&gt; You automatically try to use stealth again when you are walking though

[19:43] &lt;Brekkee&gt; *Ktorr* I remember haring something about "Smoke Bombs" that allow you to insta-hide. Could you give us more on these ?
[19:43] &lt;Niobe&gt; Smoke Bombs and Egg Bombs are craftable items you've heard a little about.
[19:44] &lt;Niobe&gt; They both require 50 ninjitsu to use and perform a check to your hiding skill on use.
[19:44] &lt;Niobe&gt; If sucessful, you will be able to hide, even in combat.

[19:44] &lt;Brekkee&gt; *C_Talanithus_UOLS* The new tinkering menu has an "enhancement" option... what exactly can we enhance, and why? Is this just teo let us add luck and ruability to our jewelry?
[19:45] &lt;Ogel&gt; The enhancement option is only for the metal tinkering weapons (cleavers, etc.).
[19:45] &lt;Ogel&gt; You can now create these weapons or enhance them with the special metals (valorite, etc.).

[19:46] &lt;Brekkee&gt; *BluGnome* Is it possible that we could see poisoned ranged weapons in UO:SE?
[19:46] &lt;EvilMantis&gt; The projectile weapons that we added for SE can in fact be poisoned
[19:46] &lt;EvilMantis&gt; Have fun with that, but watch your fingers!
[19:47] &lt;Oaks&gt; That's the throwing stars and blowgun by the way... the new bow is not poisonable.

[19:47] &lt;Brekkee&gt; *Hyperion* Can we expect any new changes to fishing, or improvements to the sailing aspect of UO with Samurai Empire or follwing publishes?
[19:48] &lt;Leurocian&gt; Yes. I've made some Ancient SOS tweaks to make them a little less rare. We will be adding variable weights for Big Fish as well as the fisherman's mark. Example: a big fish, n stones, caught by character name
[19:48] &lt;Leurocian&gt; The Live Team is also currently evaluating other possible future additions as well.

[19:48] &lt;Brekkee&gt; *Toki* will the new skills offer massive advantages over old skills in pvp
[19:49] &lt;Oaks&gt; We try very hard to balance the new abilities both numerically and through our own playtesting. However, players are often a heck of a lot more clever and come up with combinations we didn't even dream of. We are still seeing new imbalances come from the Paladin and Necromancers a year an a half later. So, honestly, there will probably be some -- but we'll try to address them as quickly as possible.

[19:49] &lt;Brekkee&gt; *Nevyn_UOPG* Can smoke bombs be looted off of monsters? And if so, is the amount gotten small? It would be a shame to kill off a crafter bonus because something can more easily be gotten through PvM
[19:50] &lt;Niobe&gt; A very few new Samurai Empire creatures do have a few smoke bombs, but only because they kind of need to use them.
[19:51] &lt;Niobe&gt; However, you'll have a lot more luck and fun getting them from your friendly crafting friend.

[19:51] &lt;Brekkee&gt; *Hyperion* When AOS released, there were the secret areas of Malas(Find the bag, drop a rune). Can we expect to see similar things in Samurai Empire?
[19:51] &lt;OSI_speedman&gt; Easter Eggs in a game?!
[19:51] &lt;OSI_speedman&gt; Nah.......
[19:51] &lt;OSI_speedman&gt;

[19:52] &lt;Brekkee&gt; *C_Talanithus_UOLS* Can the new bows (or any ranged weapons) be used with Ninja abilities, like the suprise attack?
[19:52] &lt;Oaks&gt; They sure can. As we've been playtesting, we found we *may* need to scale damage down slightly based on range for these abilities

[19:54] &lt;Brekkee&gt; *Snippa* with smoke bombs, would it be possible to use them while running? so if you get revealed, you can insta hide and stealth-run again right away?
[19:54] &lt;Oaks&gt; The smoke bombs do not require you to be standing still.

[19:55] &lt;Brekkee&gt; *Nevyn_UOPG* Is the noninclusion of Order/Chaoso toggles in the new guild system intentional?
[19:55] &lt;Oaks&gt; It is indeed intentional.

[19:55] &lt;Brekkee&gt; *[DJ]psycho* Will Item Insurance change in UO:SE? and insurance money in PvP?
[19:55] &lt;Niobe&gt; We did not make changes to item insurance or insurance money for UO:SE

[19:56] &lt;Brekkee&gt; *BluGnome* Are there any changes to mining in UO:SE?
[19:57] &lt;Oaks&gt; Nope.

[19:58] &lt;Brekkee&gt; *C_Talanithus_UOLS* Will the new SE Asian themed items (green tea, Samurai/ninja armor) only be purchaseable in Tokuno (SE land), or will they be added to NPC shopkeepers on every facet?
[19:59] &lt;Niobe&gt; The NPCs in Tokuno are quite distinct from other areas in Sosaria, including what they wear and what they sell.
[19:59] &lt;Niobe&gt; UO:SE themed items will be purchasable only from vendors in those lands.
[20:00] &lt;Niobe&gt; You will be able to sell the items anywhere, so they will crop up in the other area vendors from time to time.
[20:00] &lt;Niobe&gt; And players are welcome to add the items to their personal vendors.

[20:00] &lt;Brekkee&gt; *Garaba* For each of the developers, what is your favorite feature in UO:SE and why?
[20:00] &lt;Oaks&gt; Ninjas. Because they are Ninjas.
[20:00] &lt;wilki_EA&gt; Ninjas, cause they flip out and kill everyone...
[20:01] &lt;Niobe&gt; Ninjas are mammals
[20:01] &lt;Ogel&gt; I like all the new housing decorations/add-ons.
[20:01] &lt;Ogel&gt; And ninjas
[20:01] &lt;wilki_EA&gt; Did I mention we got Ninjas in SE?
[20:01] &lt;Niobe&gt; I can't ever pick just one thing. I think our new cows (the Gaman) are really interesting.
[20:01] &lt;Leurocian&gt; I would have to say the new stealth changes because I like being stealthy. And of course there is the ability to poison shurikens and blow gun darts because I like to assasinate other PCs...er, I'll stop there. Only one favorite feature is allowed.....Oh, and I love Ninjas ;P
[20:02] &lt;Leurocian&gt; PCs = player characters
[20:02] &lt;EvilMantis&gt; Ninjas, because being different is bad
[20:02] &lt;Oaks&gt; By the way... there is a change to mining that may be my favorite feature (sorry I forgot about this) -- the fire beetle!
[20:02] &lt;Niobe&gt; It is dreamy!
[20:02] &lt;wilki_EA&gt; Don't forget the Ninjas!
[20:02] &lt;Oaks&gt; Portable smelter for one, please. Thank you.
[20:02] &lt;Leurocian&gt; How dreamy is it?
[20:02] &lt;Niobe&gt; hehe
[20:03] &lt;Fertbert&gt; I like the ferret racetrack because it will give Sosaria's ferrets a place to get some exercise.
[20:03] &lt;Leurocian&gt; Curses! I wanna prairie dog race track!
[20:03] &lt;Brekkee&gt; That will wrap it up for tonight. Thanks for coming! You can join #Ultima-Online to chat more about the game.
[20:03] &lt;Brekkee&gt; The log for tonight’s chat will be up shortly on http://uo.stratics.com </blockquote>

<blockquote>Do you want a chance to win a free copy of Samurai Empire, including a free Soulstone, and help us improve Ultima Online all at the same time?

All you have to do is log-in to the UOSE Beta test shard and play on Friday, October 8th, between 4:00 – 8:00PM PDT (11:00 – 3:00AM GMT), when we will be conducting a server load test. Sometime during this special test, we will randomly select 5 players who are actively playing (killing monsters, PvP’ing, crafting, etc) in and around the town of Zento in the southern part of the Tokuno Islands to receive :

*A free copy of Ultima Online Samurai Empire.
*A Soulstone code.

The 5 lucky winners will have their prizes delivered after Samurai Empire has launched and is on store shelves November 2. If you win, you will be contacted via email and given instructions on how to claim your prizes. Make sure the email address associated with your Beta account is up to date and accurate!

Tell everyone you know in the Beta to log-in during the play test window on Friday between 4:00 – 8:00 PDT to help with the load test and get a chance to win a free copy of Samurai Empire, including a free Soulstone!

Remember, in order to have a chance to win, you must be logged in at the time that we select the winners and be actively playing in or around the town of ZENTO in southern part of the Tokuno Islands. We will pick the winners any time between 4:00 – 8:00PM PDT. Be sure to engage in normal gameplay for as long as you can during this time to increase your chance of winning!

See you in the Tokuno Islands!</blockquote>

Posted on the Developer Feedback / General News sections of UO Stratics -
(1) Leurocian confirms that there are no Meer Captain and Warrior Paragons
(2) Soulstone Update (EA Store and Amazon info included) - see the thread HERE :

<blockquote>
1. You get one Soulstone code for each Samurai Empire box that you order.

2. If you get more than one Soulstone code, you can apply them to different accounts, or to the same account. This gives you the option of having a Soulstone on each account that you play, or having more than one Soulstone on any given account.

3. Once you've applied the Soulstone code to a given account, the Soulstone is "married" to that account, and you can only use it with the characters on that account.</blockquote>

I was away for a while (getting a little sun burnt at a beach resort) ... and so much news has been released regarding UO. /php-bin/shared/images/icons/smile.gif

A rather comprehensive list of the new craftables found in UOSE can be found HERE.

A list of the stats / skills of some of the new UOSE creatures can be found HERE. See also this thread at the UO Stratics Tamer Forum - HERE.

Posted on the FYI section of uo.com - The UOSE Beta NDA Has Been Lifted and UOSE Beta will be ending Wednesday, October 13th :

<blockquote>Please note that if you participated in the Ultima Online Samurai Empire Closed Public Beta Test, the NDA that you agreed to before applying the upgrade code has officially been lifted. Anyone who participated in any phase of the Closed Public Beta Test is free to discuss Beta experiences, as well as, post screenshots.

<blockquote>We would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has participated in the UOSE Beta test, your feedback has been a tremendous value to our QA and Development teams.

Having said that, we would like to let you know that the UOSE Beta test will be coming to an end in the early morning hours of Wednesday, October 13th, so please take this opportunity to take screenshots of your custom houses and other points of interest you may want to note.

Once again, thank you for participating and helping to make Ultima Online: Samurai Empire one of the cleanest expansions in Ultima Online History.</blockquote>

See this rather long thread at UHall HERE for some player comments on the UOSE beta. See for example, this custom house by Tiffiany Case :

This bit on the same thread from Wilki :

<blockquote>Since we are removing the magery skill check when you recall using runebook charges, anyone will be able to recall as long as they keep their runebook stocked with recall scrolls.

Oh, and btw, we're also doubling the number of charges that runebooks can hold. This will apply to current runebooks as well.</blockquote>

For Samurais, there is a FAQ work-in-progress - see HERE. It has (among other things) the minimum skill and mana cost for each of the Samurai abilities and the special moves for weapons which require the Bushido skill. See also this post HERE by Ravenspyre :

<blockquote>I tested Bushido in depth.

First and foremost the abilities. Bushido is in addition to parry, and more or less applies to two handed weapons. When I equipped a one handed weapon and shield, I appeared to parry a bit less than with a two handed weapon.

Now as for the abilities.

Lighting Strike 5 mana - This ups your chance ot hit a target, plus also includes a smallc hance to do a critical strike (it's very infrequent). The critical strike can do a decent ammount of damage to a target.

Momentum Strike 10 mana - This nice ability is only useful if youa re being attacked by two or more opponents (it's a nice anti-gank move to). Basically, with this, you hit your first target for normal damage, if the attack succeeds, you take a swing at a second target (can be random if more than one foe targetting you) which does about double the damage you did the the first target. Great way to get multiple opponents off your butt fast, or tackling mroe than one monster at a time.

Counter Attack 5 mana - This will let you hit an opponent back on a successful parry. It's basically a reaction move, you spend the mana activating it, but it lasts about 40 seconds to a minute (didn't time it exactly0. If you successfully parry, you automatically take a swing outside your normal swing timer at the opponent, which does not interupt your normal swing,a nd if you had a special or other move used, it will use that move. Something to be careful with.

Evasion 10 mana - This is the warriors dream move. It lasts about 6 to 10 seconds (didn't time exactly) but during the time period this move is active you can PARRY (using your parry skill and bushido if applicable) direct magic attacks and other things like dragon breath. Indirect mage spells, like curses, poisons,a nd necro curses, are not parried.

Confidence 10 mana - Activated this move lasts about 30 to 40 seconds (didn't time it) but when first activated, you get an incredible regeneration rate to your HP for a few seconds (about 5). After that, while this move is active, for each successful parry you do, you get a small ammount of HP and stamina back.

Honorable Execution 0 mana - This move is confusing ot many. This is a finishing move, and I would not suggest using it a a regular move unless you are sure you cna kill teh target in the next hit. When successful, it will restore a large portion of your life. If you do not kill your target with the next move, however, you will lose a large portion of your resistances, and your magic resist will be set to 0 for about 6 seconds. It's a risky move, especially if you are unsure if you can kill the target in the next hit, bu tht epayoff can be beneficial with restored life if you are hurting. (I've been fully restored to full life from honorable excution).

Weapon Special Moves-
Only a few of these I have actually tested.

Nerve Strike Only on the Bokuto (wooden sword) - This move is really good. First reading the text you think it is just another form of paralysing blow, until you use it. It actually is a better version, delivering a nice strike of sdamage along with the normal weapon damage, plus paralysing them. This move can only be used if you have bushido.

Riding Swipe no-dachi only (two handed sword) - I like this move to. Very useful in mounted combat. It actually attacks both the rider and the riders mount. If you hit a rider with this enough you can literally kill the rider's mount out from under them. If you are on foot, it can be used to dismount instead, doing damage tot he mount, and the mount can not be re-mounted until the damage delivered is healed. Saw no noticeable effect for ethy mounts however. Requires bushido to use.

Frenzied Whirlwind (wakizashi, latajang, tetsubo) - At first sounds like jsut another version of whirlwind. But actually, when used, it actually doe swhat it says. It's a frenzied whirlwind delivering several attacks in a short time period. Each attack get's weaker in damage however. Either bushido or ninjitsu to use this skill.

Feint (daisho, Bokuto, nunchaku) - This move actually, if successful, raises your DCI for a short period of time. Very handy in situations where your opponent has a better chance at smacking you around a bit, but not something I use extensively.

The Virtue of Honor-
This virtue is a really nice virtue to use in PvM. If you honor a target, each successive hit you do to it, your damage increases. However, each time you miss, your damage decreases. To tell where you stand you get a message stating, you have gained or lost in perfection. However, if you mvoe at all, you will lose all your perfection, and thus reset to the beginning. I found the samurai quite capable using honor fighting monsters, as the samurai was able to stand his ground more than my paladin ever could.

However, you can not honor a monster if it is damaged in any way. So you can only honor them if they are at full health, so don't be expecting to go up to someone elses kill and honor there mosnter expecting to steal it.

Honor is also very difficult to raise. I think I honored like some 40 critters, high level ones, and only got about 7 or 8 pips, and never broke the first tier.</blockquote>

The official UOSE website is now open - see HERE. /php-bin/shared/images/icons/smile.gif :

<blockquote>Ultima Online Samurai Empire is gold! The dev team can final take a rest because the sixth, and perhaps best expansion in UO’s history, is done and sent off to the manufacturer. The official shipdate is Nov. 2. so look for it on store shelves Nov. 3. Pre-order now to secure your pre-order gift, the Soulstone.</blockquote>

The Weapons page on UO Stratics - see HERE and HERE - has been updated with details of the new weapons for UOSE and their respective special moves.

For example :

<blockquote>Riding Swipe - If you are on foot, dismounts your opponent and damage the ethereal's rider or the living mount(which must be healed before ridden again). If you are mounted, damages and stuns the mounted opponent.
Requires Bushido skill.</blockquote>

Over HERE at Ian Storm are pictures of some of the stealable artifacts found in UOSE. An example :

On this thread at UHall HERE are some details relating to the Origami. Eg :

Over HERE is an excellent Mini FAQ on how to build a Roof with the UOSE tile set.

Already posted on the General News Section of UO Stratics and the FYI section of uo.com - UPDATE) Client patch 4.0.5a Information - see HERE for the client patch scheduled to be released tomorrow, October 14th, at approximately 8:00AM PST (3:00PM GMT), which will include support for the launch of Ultima Online: Samurai Empire.

As for what a soul stone looks like ... see the Screen Shot section of the official UOSE website -

The Ninja FAQ in the Ninja Forum has been updated with lots of information regarding the new Ninja abilities, including the animal form abilities - see HERE - for example :

<blockquote>Special Ability: Animal Form

Using an ancient secret only known to a few, the Ninja mysteriously takes the shape of a beast, granting himself animal-like abilities. Animal form gives the Ninja the ability to transform into an animal, gaining special bonuses unique to each type of creature. There are 12 animal forms available to a skilled Ninja, including stealthy animals such as Rats, ferocious beasts like the Bake Kitsune, and fast runners like Ostards and Unicorns.

Mana Cost: 0/ Min. Skill: Varies - Allows you to transform into an animal, gaining special bonuses. If you are running while casting the spell, you will automatically transform into your last selected animal type. Duration is permanent until recast or death. The Animal Forms include:

(c) Hunter's Guide updated with information about the new UOSE monsters - HERE. Look under the "Undiscovered Creatures" section on the Right Hand Side Col. Check out the Hiryu which requires 4 control slots when tamed.

(d) Details of the new UOSE weapons has been added to various sections of UO Stratics including Weapons and the Special Moves Page. Fencing, Archery, Swordsmanship and Macing have their individual updates.

1) There are 4 new fencing weapons - Kama, Lajatang, Sai &amp; Tekagi. They are all 2 handed weapons.

2) The special attacks possible from these weapons are

(i) Whirlwind attack ("WW") - A godsend to a warrior surrounded, the Whirlwind Attack allows the fighter to strike at all nearby targets in one mighty spinning swing. Will not accidentally strike innocents, allies, or party members

*A “Guild” button has been added to the paperdoll
*Can also access the new guild system by typing the word “guilds”
*Legacy guild stones are now deedable items
*Guilds can now form alliances with other guilds

*Faction System has had some minor modifications made to it
*Honor Virtue System was added

MyUO Issues:

Please note that during the initial launch phase of Ultima Online: Samurai Empire the MyUO web services will experience the following issues as we update the service.

The New Guild System: The Guild pages will no longer update due to the new guild system introduced with UOSE. We are redoing the MyUO guild pages to fully encompass all of the changes introduced to the new guild system.

New UOSE Wearables: If you have any of the new UOSE wearables equipped they will not show up on your paperdoll on your MyUO page.

New Skills: The Bushido and Ninjitsu skills will not show up on your skill list in MyUO.

These MyUO features should be implemented and functioning by mid November. We will keep you updated as we progress.</blockquote>

On the new guild system implemented on LS, guildmasters may want to read about this possible bug - see HERE :

<blockquote>There is a possible bug with the new system for guilds. Upon logging in after the server side patch, I found my guild was warred with a guild we should not have been. This guild and I had warred a long time ago and declared peace.</blockquote>

On this lengthy thread HERE, Platinum gave this warning about illegal 3rd party programs :

<blockquote>As a general FYI to everyone, the Development Team has been cracking down on 3rd party programs so do not be surprised if you get caught. As all of you know, I cannot come here to the forums and discuss specific account issues. I can promise you that there is no conspiracy going on here. We rarely make mistakes with these types of issues and any mistakes made are corrected. If you feel like a mistake was made then please feel free to follow the steps outlined in the email for contacting our Account Admin Department.

(1) Leurocian has made some comments on skill gain - see HERE, including this bit :

<blockquote>As an addendum to my last post, I also want to state that I feel some skills are way too easy to raise by artificial means. Any movement based skill like magery, peacemaking, spirit speak, chivalry, necromancy, etc. can all be maxed out in a matter of a few days by using 8X8 on a boat. This should probably be addressed as well when evaluating any skill changes to the game.
</blockquote>

(2) On this thread HERE, some comments on the latest publish (which has hit Lake Superior and Asuka). Speedman wrote :

<blockquote>
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Invisibility spell not working properly as monsters will reveal and retarget you. Hiding skill messed up the same way too...
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is intended. Monsters that cast spells will now add reveal to their repertoire. By the way, if you didn't already know this, you can now start gaining in stealth at 50.0 hiding instead of 80.0.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Recalls from Ilshenar do not work.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thanks for reporting this. We're looking at this issue currently.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Guildstone Art Changed
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This was intended. The guildstones have taken on the weathered look to symbolize their past legacy in Sosaria. It also provided a nice easy way for us to see if they converted correctly

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Aprons and Half Aprons require leather to make now, not cloth, but can be added to cloth bods, yet at the same time cannot be dyed with a leather dye tub
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

*The new Guild System has been introduced:
-A "Guild" button has been added to the paperdoll
-Can also access the new guild system by typing the word "guilds"
-A new guild interface has been introduced to enhance guilds and provide greater accessibility
-Legacy guild stones are now deedable items
-Guilds can now form alliances with other guilds
-The Guild interface now displays when members were last on
-Guilds now cost 25,000 to gold to be created
-Vendors no longer sell guild deeds but will still buy them back
-Legacy guilds have been converted into the new guild system at no additional cost
-Chaos and Order system have been removed
-Added a guild alliance system
-Guilds can now set different ranks, each with their own levels of permission, to guild members
-A new guild election system has been introduced
-Guild wars can now be declared using length of time or number of kills as their victory conditions
-Guild security settings have been added to the housing system

Faction System has had some minor modifications made to it:

*Insurance costs have been lowered from their current cost when a player dies to a faction enemy
*Sigil corruption time is now 10 hours. The grace period is now 30 minutes
*The sigil carrier hueing system was improved
*Any player can now resurrect their own war horse
*Skilled animal tamers will now resurrect pets with more starting health

Various minor bugfixes

*The Stealth Skill has been changed:
-Entering and training Stealth will now only require 50.0 skill in Hiding instead of the previous 80.0
-Hidden players with enough skill in Stealth will now attempt to auto-stealth once they begin to walk
-Players can now run in stealth, but doing so increases the chances that players will come out of stealth
-Monsters will retain knowledge of hidden players and attempt to find players that hide while in view of the monster
-Poison damage will no longer reveal hidden players

Known Issues:

*Nightsight is not functioning properly
*Pets highlight orange
*Players cannot craft empty barrels
*Players cannot recall out of Ilshenar
*Some completed guild wars and declined war invitations are being imported as active wars into the new guild system.
*Luna guard zone was extended, preventing house placement
*Filtering guilds and guild members in the new Guild Interface does not work properly in all instances
*Guild secure containers not accessible unless the house owner is on same subserver
*A small number of areas are inaccessable due to roof tile changes

Character Transfer:
Please note that during publish cycles the Character Transfer service will only be available between shards that have the same server code version. This service will return to normal once all shards have been published.</blockquote>

I have highlighted the changes made to "Stealth". They are fairly significant.

Or they will only reveal what they saw hide?
------------------------------------------------------------------------------Monsters that can cast reveal will only reveal what they saw hide, and probably will forget about you if they start fighting something else. If you run a little ways away and cast invis, that monster shouldn't be able to find you...

If you stand somewhere hidden and a monster happens to mosey past you, he'll never even notice you were there.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Players with magery can reveal those who are attackable to them, with a check against the hidden being's hiding and stealth vs the caster's magery and detect hidden.

As monsters can attack anyone, they can reveal anyone. It just make sense.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------That's correct. Monster spell casting AI is evolving a little bit. Monsters intelligent enough to be good casters are now intelligent enough to watch you hide and cast reveal on that spot a few seconds later. It's that simple.

It stands to reason that hiding/revealing interaction changed a little bit for this expansion because It's got Ninjas. Ninjas like to be stealthy. It's like a 4th rule.</blockquote>

and

<blockquote>
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Do the majority of monsters now have the detect hidden skill or is it limited only to a few monsters ?
------------------------------------------------------------------------------Quite a few monsters have gained detect hidden capability, but most have pretty low skill. They may also try to actively detect you if you hide and may notice you if you stealth very close to them (a check is done of your stealth skill vs. the monster's detect hidden).

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If the majority of monsters do not have the detect hidden skill, does that mean that those monsters casting the reveal spell on a character with (say) GM hiding and GM stealth would not (generally speaking) be able to reveal the character or at least have great difficulty in doing so ?
------------------------------------------------------------------------------Monsters have the same difficutly casting reveal as players, so they'd have the greatest difficulty casting on a player that is very good at hiding and stealth.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
For those monsters with the detect hidden skill, does the skill level vary or is it a fixed level for the majority of monsters ?
------------------------------------------------------------------------------Monsters have different levels of detect hidden skill. More intelligent monsters may have higher detect hidden skill.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Also, for monsters with the detect hidden skill, does it mean that when they mosey past a player (with zero hiding skill) who is invisible, that player will be revealed by the passive use of the monster's detect hidden skill ?
------------------------------------------------------------------------------If you stand still and the monster never saw you before, he won't notice you. If you stealth near the monster there is the possibility that it will reveal you. If you hide during combat with the monster, he may try to use his detect hidden skill to find you.</blockquote>

<blockquote>First off, I'd like to thank everyone for letting us know the hiding and reveal changes were still not working as intended. As you may have already read from Speedman, there were corrections made to this on TC1 LS last night. A big thanks also goes out to RAEL for looking at the changes after those corrections went live and for providing a detailed report!

The increased ability for monsters to potentially reveal and retarget was a change made to give monster AI some variety for [mostly] higher level creatures and to provide some additional challenge.

The change is not meant to nerf treasure hunters, tamers or any other template. The change is not to make things so difficult that play becomes impossible and frustrating. The change is not meant to auto-reveal you. The change is not meant to even work all the time.

If that is what is happening, we will need to take a serious look at this. Many of you have not seen this change yet or experienced broken versions of this unfortunately. We do want your opinions on the subject matter, but we also need to look at this with a critical eye based on experiences with newest changes.

While we would like information from everyone on this subject, we're especially interested in hearing more feedback from people checking out the hiding/reveal changes on TC1 LS because it has the newest code available. So this post is focused on those players. Can you help us out by answering some of these questions?

Have you tested the changes to hiding and reveal on TC1 LS?

If so, what are your general impressions?

Are there any specific types of creatures that seem out of whack?

Are there any creatures you feel should NEVER reveal? If so, which ones?

Are there any creatures you feel should be especially good at revealing?

Thanks everyone. Enjoy the World Series if you enjoy baseball and have a great weekend!

(sorry for rambling on!)

Niobe</blockquote>

On the same topic (monster's ability to reveal invis/hidden players) and same thread, Speedman posted earlier HERE :

<blockquote>In addition, some changes were made to the monster reveal abilities on TC1 LS Test:
* The formula for revealing stealthers who approach a monster has changed and doesn't work as far away as it did
* Fixed line-of-sight and distance problems for monsters who cast reveal
* Monsters will now cast reveal at your last visible location instead of magically casting on your current location even if you stealthed away</blockquote>

Various information posted on the FYI section of uo.com - see HERE - including TC 1 LS Test Update Publish and In Game Guild Search In Japanese Issue (Asuka Shard) (causing crashing)

First, 24 Oct 2004 was the deadline to "opt in" to receive the 7AE codes from EA. Over HERE, Wilki posted :

<blockquote>The answer is that Oct 24th was the deadline to opt-in for receiving emails from EA, which you needed to do in order to get the 7AE gift code email, not the actual "we're sending out emails now" date.

We should be sending them out later this week.</blockquote>

Wilki over clarified HERE, some of the known issues which will be fixed in Publish 28 (after UOSE is released) :

If so I'll need to ask my customers to stop throwing them away and start returning them. This looks like a low priority for fixing, similar to when we couldn't mine stone for months. I'd like to be prepared if I can.

Wilki: Yes, that means kegs.

It's fixed and scheduled for Pub 28.

Question: Wilki, what about the bug that Aprons and Half Aprons are made with leather now instead of cloth? Will that be fixed in Pub 28 also?

Wilki: Yes, it is also scheduled for Pub 28.

Now, something may happen between now and then that prevents it from being in Pub28, but as of right now, it's fixed and included with Pub 28.

Comment: I made a dozen kegs yesterday and converted them to potion kegs. Where is this coming from?
And just to show I wasn't hallucinating - I just made a keg.

So ... barrels no; kegs yes.

Wilki: This only occurs on shards that have been published with the UOSE code. So far that is LS, Napa and Asuka.

If you're wondering why we don't just fix it in today's publish, the answer is that the process of identifying a bug, reproducing it, fixing it, testing it and getting it ready for a publish takes a chunk of time.</blockquote>

<blockquote>On Monday, October 25th, 2004 at 11:30AM PDT (6:30PM GMT) we will be publishing the Napa Valley and Lake Superior shards with updated UOSE launch preparation code. We will also be updating the Asuka shard with the current launch preparation code during it’s normal maintenance window (4:00PM PDT\11:00AM GMT). Please note the visible changes below:

Bug Fixes:

*Fixed an issue with items that gave a HP Regeneration bonus to cause players’ strength to drop to 10 after crossing server lines

A new guild interface has been introduced to enhance guilds and provide greater accessibility

Legacy guild stones are now deedable items

Guilds can now form alliances with other guilds

The Guild interface now displays when members were last on

Guilds now cost 25,000 to gold to be created

Vendors no longer sell guild deeds but will still buy them back

Legacy guilds have been converted into the new guild system at no additional cost

Chaos and Order system have been removed

Added a guild alliance system

Guilds can now set different ranks, each with their own levels of permission, to guild members

A new guild election system has been introduced

Guild wars can now be declared using length of time or number of kills as their victory conditions

Guild security settings have been added to the housing system

*Faction System has had some minor modifications made to it:

Insurance costs have been lowered from their current cost when a player dies to a faction enemy

Sigil corruption time is now 10 hours. The grace period is now 30 minutes

The sigil carrier hueing system was improved

Any player can now resurrect their own war horse

Skilled animal tamers will now resurrect pets with more starting health

Various minor bugfixes

* The Stealth Skill has been changed:

Entering and training Stealth will now only require 50.0 skill in Hiding instead of the previous 80.0

Hidden players with enough skill in Stealth will now attempt to auto-stealth once they begin to walk

Players can now run in stealth, but doing so increases the chances that players will come out of stealth

Monsters will retain knowledge of hidden players and attempt to find players that hide while in view of the monster

Poison damage will no longer reveal hidden players

Character Transfer:

Please note that during publish cycles the Character Transfer service will only be available between shards that have the same server code version. This service will return to normal once all shards have been published.</blockquote>

Posted on the General News Section of UO Stratics are a list of updates to UOSE updates at UO Stratics. These include :

(1) Updated UOSE launch preparation code published to Lake Superior, Asuka and Napa Valley. (Maybe someone can point out the difference between the 26 Oct publish and the 25 Oct publish - I can't seem to find the difference).

(2) Planned Soulstone Activation Delay :

<blockquote>There will be a short delay in the ability to claim your Soulstone using your pre-order promotional code. This delay is to avoid players losing their Soulstones during the two days after Ultima Online: Samurai Empire is launched, when we expect extremely heavy player traffic.

In North America, you will be able to claim your Soulstone Friday, Nov. 5th PST. In Japan, players will also be able to claim their Soulstones on Friday, November 5th (which is actually Nov. 4 in North America). There will be no additional delay for Europe and Asia-Pacific as the game is shipping a few days later in those territories.

Specific times for Soulstone activation will not be announced, but when they are activated, we will post a notice in the FYI section of www.uo.com.</blockquote>

(3) LS, Napa, Asuka, and TC1 LS Test Server Publish Update - another update - this one's about Fixes to the spawn rate for champ spawns. There was a thread in UHall about the spawn rate for champ spawns in which Leurocian said he would forward to the UOSE team - see HERE, if you want to find out more about this issue. Speedman also claried on this thread HERE with these comments "This publish also fixed the slow spawn that was happening everywhere, not just at champion spawns (although they were possibly the most noticeable)."

On the Developer's Comments of UO Stratics, the following interesting bits :

1. Wilki is asking for feedback on players who play on the shards with the updated UOSE launch preparation code on the changes made to monsters, who now have the ability to cast reveal / use detect hidden - you can post your feedback on this thread HERE. Some information posted by Wilki in that thread :

<blockquote>As many of you might have noticed, we tweaked monster AI to give monsters an opportunity to reveal you once you’ve hidden after a creature has targeted you. I've been reading some of the posts here, and I think there is a bit of confusion on what we actually changed.

Let me start by stating what monsters are NOT doing after the latest publish:

*Monsters are not auto-revealing players who are hidden or invised. (See below for why they *sometimes* will reveal you)

*Monsters are not revealing players who have hidden or invised and weren't being targeted by a monster. (i.e. if you're off in the corner of a dungeon alone and hide, and a dragon comes walking by, you won't be revealed.)

Here is what monsters *are* doing:

*If a Monster has you targeted, and you're in its line of sight and try to hide or invis, it will *attempt* to reveal you. The success rate is based on both your skill and the creature’s skill, as well as your distance from the monster.

*If you stealth by a monster, there is a chance that you will be revealed. You must be very close to the monster for this to happen.

I'm interested in hearing from players on Lake Superior, Napa Valley and Asuka who have personally tried these changes after today's publish. </blockquote>

and

<blockquote>Magery doesn't count for hiding/stealth, however, distance makes quite a bit of difference. My advice would be not to invis right in front of a smart monster that is chasing you.

Some personal experience: If you are revealed by a monster that has targeted you, the monster will not immediately continue attacking you, rather the monster will pause for a varying amount of time. I was just playing on Napa, and that amount of time was always long enough for me to recast invisibility on myself w/ 0 Fast Cast, or to move enough tiles away to be out of danger. This was in Fel Destard, among dozens of dragons which have high magery as well as high detect hidden against my 0 hiding character.

If I wasn't already targeted by a dragon, and was invised, the dragons would simply walk all around me and I was never once revealed (until my invis timer was up at least). </blockquote>

and

<blockquote>Also, the vast majority of monsters that have the capability to reveal you don't bother to make the attempt every single time they get the chance. The less smart they are, the less likely they are to make an attempt.

So, for example, let's say that you are trying to hide from a dragon that has a certain chance of finding you if if tries to find you. To calculate the overall chance that you'll be found, you also have to factor in the odds that it won't even make the attempt in the first place.</blockquote>

and

<blockquote>For stealth, it is one tile.

If you stay more than one tile away from monsters, they don't have a chance to reveal you while you're stealthing.</blockquote>

and

<blockquote>Comment :
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In doom. Someone camping a artifact. You track them and find their location. Next you run off and attack a Devour. Lead the Devour to the camper's spot, invis on the camper's tile and stealth away. The Devour will reveal the camper. If the camper is afk they will die. If they are not afk they will cry.
Either way there is going to be alot of paging to the GMs.
This should be pretty funny. Can't wait for it to start.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

No, this will not happen. Monsters do not reveal people who are hiding and not already a target of the monster. Nor do they reveal people who have invised and aren't already a target of the monster.</blockquote>

2. On Bola bugs - on this thread in the Siege forum HERE, Wilki posted this :

<blockquote>Comment: This statement in itself isnt that unusual but since the person who threw it was able to unmount start the bola and remount. Thus throwing the bola while on the horse. That makes this one special.

Wilki: This is indeed a bug, and as such, the usual rules apply. Using a bug to do something that you're not intended to do can result in action being taken against your account.

It is scheduled to be fixed soon.</blockquote>

3. On Virtues (the new Honor virtue and such), EvilMantis made the following comments on this thread HERE:

<blockquote>(On the Honor virtue) You don't have to let it hit you first. You just want to be the first person that is hit after you have honored it. Lets say you and your friend are fighting paragons. The paragon aggros your friend while you honor it, and it smacks him first and not you. You will get your honor points after killing it, you just missed the "first one hit" bonus is all. Hope that clears it up</blockquote>

(Wilki clarified in the same thread with this comment - allowing monsters to do the first hit gains 20% bonus to the amount of honor points - "As EvilMantis noted, you don't have to let it hit you first. However, if you do, you'll get a 20% bonus to the amount of honor that you gain from the fight. The questions then becomes, "Is it worth it to let the opponent strike you first?" )

and

<blockquote>(Mages and archers can still gain honor)Being a mage or archer you can still be awarded honor without penalty. We deduct points for damage made at a distance, not specifically for archery or magery. So, as long as you are right next to your opponent (and you have actually honored that opponent), you will get non penalized honor points. Just remember that deductions are still made for damage made by others, your pets/summons, poison damage you inflict and damage you made while the opponent was paralyzed. </blockquote>

and

<blockquote>(You can create virtue marcos - very useful especially for "Honor")Ah yes, that text over your head was removed to help those players who wish to roleplay. This way you can say your own message when you honor something and are not forced to say a canned script. Did you guys know that the virtues honor, sacrifice and valor are now macro options? So you can create a macro through the Macro Options interface to InvokeVirtue-&gt;Honor, then Say-&gt;&lt;your text here&gt;. </blockquote>

Still on the Honor virtue, Wilki confirmed in this thread HERE that all forms of poison damage - including weapons with poison damage do not gain or gain reduced honor points.

<blockquote>I have tentative plans to make a hat of power and a ring of power for a future publish. I also have tentative plans to introduce new minor artifacts for future publishes, including publish 28.

<blockquote>Today, October 27th, 2004 we will be publishing all shards with the Ultima Online: Samurai Empire launch preparation code. This publish will take approximately 3 hours and take place during the scheduled maintenance window and for each shard as follows:

The details of the UOSE publish are set out in the link above. I do not intend to repeat it here, as it appears to be the same as the UOSE publish already on LS, Napa etc, of which particulars have been set out in several posts above this one.

(2) On this thread here, Leurocian posted several updates on Publish 28 (the publish after UOSE is launched) :

<blockquote>
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Does the darkfather have a new special move? He seemed to kill players at full health with one blow. Those that fell victim to this said that the DF did 6 hits at once. Is this intended?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

I just asked the SE team today about this. This is a known issue and will be fixed with publish 28. It's an issue with the whirlwind special maneuver, which the Dark Father possesses. It's not attacking multiple creatures, it's hitting the same creature repeatedly. This is not intend</blockquote>

(My comment - Does this mean no one can do the Guantlet until after Publish 28 ?)

<blockquote>Just talked with the SE team. Bushido and Ninjitsu skill jewelry is intended.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Comment : Ok I have about 50 plants and after this latest patch I cant water, add pots, or collect resoures ? Mr Tact : This is fixed in Pub28, FYI.</blockquote>

(Note : In a seperate thread HERE, Speedman stated "This is currently scheduled to be fixed in Publish 28. In the meantime, as long as you click on the edges of the buttons and not on the picture on the button it should still work fine".)

(4)On the HEREMonster Revealing Feedback Thread, Wilki made the following comment, among others :

<blockquote>
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I was revealed by a gazer larva. They are listed as not even having magery,let alone having the skill to cast reveal. This happened on Sonoma.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------Most creatures have some amount of detect hidden skill. A gazer larva has about 27 detect hidden.</blockquote>

and

<blockquote>------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So with only 27 detect it can reveal a 100 magery 100 eval mage. That somehow doesnt seem quite right.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------The power of the invisibility spell doesn't scale with Magery or Eval.

The reason behind that was that one spell shouldn't be able to replace the usefulness of 100 skill points (hiding). </blockquote>

and

<blockquote>------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I ask as if it is indeed the former (fixed,) there is at least one bug that I know of that is said to have been fixed. I was revealed from the otherside of the wall, clearly out of line of sight. GM hiding/stealth for what it's worth. I had no monsters/animals on my side of the wall at all (I'd lured them all out of the room.)

Yet when I cast invis to see what would happen, I was revealed through the wall of the room just the same.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------This is not how it should work, but we are aware of the issue.

And all shards have the most up to date server code as of today. (Minus Europe, which will be published shortly)</blockquote>

(My comment : The way detect hidden interacts with hidden / invisible creatues really has to be investigated in greater detail).

<blockquote>
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
You think you can fix the champ spawns in Ilshenar while you're at it?
------------------------------------------------------------------------------There were some slight tweaks made to the Ilshenar champion spawns with the publish we made tonight to TC1 LS Test, Napa Valley, Lake Superior and Asuka. Namely, the Ilshenar spawns should have a slightly lower monster kill threshold to advance the spawn.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I don't think thats all they've broken. Tonight in Tram Destard on Cats, only one drag, one drake and one wyvern were spawning at a time.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------hough it's true that the spawner system for the entire shard was running slow, that problem only occurred on the SE shards (namely the four mentioned above). Catskills wasn't affected. I suppose it's possible that some of the dragons or drakes were tamed and still in the dungeon which might cause the spawn system to still think that there were already a sufficient number of creatures there.</blockquote>

(6) On the Hearth of the Home Fire, Fertbert stated HERE that the Hearth issue (fire not flickering) should be fixed in Publish 28.

<blockquote>We are implementing a territory specific housing delay in order to ensure that players from each territory have a fair chance to get a home on the Tokuno Islands. This delay has been implemented due to community requests as well as to reduce the server load.

The schedule for turning on housing placement on the shards is as follows, PST:

Is it bannable to go afk weather as a ghost or a player at WBB for hours on end so-long as nothing is being macroed to keep you online? What I mean is if I am a ghost red working counts off I sit my ghost at a very busy moongate and go read a book or something is it unattended macroing? I'm not running anymacro to keep myself online, just the journal refreash is doing it. is that considerd banable. If so why is it not listed and why is it ok for a player at Brit Bank able to do the same thing without a problem.

I ask this because of the ghost bans happening at moongates in the past week or so, and yes because of the player who was proud he got people banned. to me it is the ultimat grief that if I go afk to make dinner and not respond to a player that I will be banned if that player wants to report me.

Standing in game is legal. GMs will not take action against players for simply standing in the game. However if you are using any speech, action, skills, or movement in the game at the same time it will be considered to be unattended macroing. GMs also do not take action against players solely based on if they have murder counts or not.</blockquote>

Already posted on Developer's Comments on the General News page of UO Stratics -

(a) Fix for spawn of Dread Spiders / Titans etc scheduled for Publish 28 (currently a few of the said spawns are not working)

(b) Fix for Rikktor to be summoned at the end of the Rat spawn (except Despise) scheduled for Publish 28

<blockquote>Over the next 24 hours we will be publishing all shards with an update including:

*fix for the lag seen today on Lake Superior and Asuka
*young players can now recall again
*guild alliance members can now perform beneficial acts on each other in Felucca
*guild secures now function as expected

Publishes will happen within the normal one hour maintenance window with the exception of Formosa which will have a two hour downtime window after its normal maintenance time. It will skip its regular maintenance restart. The extended downtime for Formosa will enable us to replace some failed hardware in addition to deploying the publish.</blockquote>

(1) UOAM has been updated with the Tokuno Islands map. Download from http://uoam.net.

(2) EquipLast Weapon macro in UO can be used to switch weapons. See Speedman's post HERE :

<blockquote>In the UO client you can set up a macro called EquipLastWeapon. This will re-equip the last weapon that you had equipped before your current weapon (or if your hands are empty). Using it twice in a row will swap between those two weapons.

If you have a one-handed sword equipped and a shield and you try to execute EquipLastWeapon (and your last weapon happens to be a two-handed sword), I believe it will also unequip your shield so that you can hold the two-handed weapon. However, executing the macro again will just re-equip the sword and not the shield.

You can also quickly switch between an empty hand and your last weapon, which would be good for potions.

This will work faster than a UOAssist macro as it does it immediately instead of dragging your old weapon to your backpack and moving your new weapon to your hand.

Sorry, I thought this was explained better in the manual or something somewhere. I'll talk to Wilki about getting it explained somewhere.</blockquote>

<blockquote>
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
more on the fire beetle...

its stats looked normal except 1 thing...

its dmg type is
100% fire and 100% physical

dont know if this is why a cow woops its butt

doesn't seem right though, i finally got the thing able to kill cows... just takes 5 minute for each one... otherwise bulls now destroy it still...

nothing like giving tamers a super beetle that does deadly poison melee damage and is a elder mage like the rune beetle

and then giving us smiths a beetle that can melt ore on it's back but can barely defend itself agains a mongbat let alone be able to kill its own food (cows and bulls)

odd isn't it? is this a bug... no i dont mean literally either not intended to be a pun
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Indeed, this is a bug. The fire beetle should only have 100% fire damage but has 100% physical damage tacked onto him once the flaming bug crosses a server line. This creates a situation where the fire beetle's damage is also broken.

Because the code attached to the creature is working correctly, we did not find out about this issue until it went live and was hit with a little known production issue. We're tracking this internally but I am not sure what publish a fix for this will be performed. </blockquote>

Catch - 22 situation, as there is no skill that requires 0 to practice, so unless you can find a trainer, or you START your char with ninjitsu, you cannot raise ninjitsu.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------Animal form should require 0 skill to use but is currently requiring 20. This is a bug and has been fixed internally.

BTW, there are Ninjitsu and Bushido trainers in Tokuno islands. Wilki has already discussed the issue with trainers for Siege and Reds, so I won't repeat him here</blockquote>

<blockquote>We are currently staging a patch for release that will include support for the Publish 28 server publish. We intend to release this patch today, November 15th, 2004 at approximately 1:00PM PST (9:00PM GMT).

Changes include:

2D Client:
Fixed crash related to using the guild search on the guild diplomacy screen

Both Clients:
Added holiday gift art
Added No-Dachi to Crushing Blow list in combat book
Ninja mirror images can no longer be readily identified by mousing over the backpack on their paperdoll
Improved music playing code to help improve audio quality
Corrected some map problems
Corrected some art problems.
Localization updates

Both clients will report the version: 4-0-6a</blockquote>

(2) New Holiday Gifts - see this thread in UHall HERE, thanks to Fluffy :

From left to right they are:
Holiday Candle (Bow is most likely dyeable)
Festive Cactus
Snowy Tree
Decorative Topiary
Mistletoe

<blockquote>The bow is dyeable, as is the ribbon on the mistletoe. The candle has a flickering animation. The gifts will be available as soon as Publish 28 has been published to your shard</blockquote>

Professions: New players who pick Bushido or Ninjitsu skill will now start with the appropriate skill book.

Fixed 3D unused tile issue with Fukiya weapon.

No-Dachi is now listed in combat book under Crushing Blow.

Live Enhancements/Fixes

<font color=blue>Instance Corpses</font color=blue>

Damaging a mob and making the top attackers list allows you access to its loot in an fairly distributed fashion. The looting rights formula has remained unchanged.

Players or parties who make the top attackers list will receive an “instanced” loot container.

This corpse container will only be accessible by the player and not viewable by others for 3 minutes :
(a)Gold will be split evenly among all players on the top attackers list
(b)Generic stackable items (bolts/arrows, jewels, reagents, etc.) will also be divided among the top attackers
(c) Each player has a chance to receive up to 1/N (rounded up) of the creature’s total items (where N = # top attackers)
(d) Resources (meat, skins, etc.) will go to the player on the top attackers list who first cuts up the corpse
(e) Items the creature has looted from a player will only be available to the player they came from for 3 minutes

Each player’s own Luck will play a role in determining the loot that is received
In the case of a party, the member with the highest luck will be used

Loot and resources left in the instance corpses will become available to everyone after 3 minutes are up

PVP looting will not be affected by this change

Example:
The Dark Father (loot table: 2011 gold, 12 items)
Player A 670 gold 4 items (Notice player has a chance of receiving up to 1/N of the total items)
Player B 670 gold 3 items (Notice however players will not always receive the full amount of the 1/N items )
Player C 670 gold 4 items (Notice gold will always be split evenly)

<font color=blue>Holiday Gifts 2004</font color=blue>
Each player character during the holiday season will receive a random colored gift box. Note: characters must be 30 days or older to be eligible for holiday gifts.

Give the fabled net thrower (if a GM Fisherman) a 1 in 4 chance of getting a minor artifact (not modified by luck or damage).

If the fabled net thrower doesn't get a minor artifact, but is a top attacker, then perform the normal chance to get a minor artifact modified by luck. i.e., the fabled net thrower won't get two minor artifacts from one leviathan, but will have two chances to get one.

</font color=blue>Barding Fixes/Tweaks </font color=blue>

Capped barding difficulty at 160.0.

Added Barding Difficulty to Animal Lore gump.

Barding Difficulty will show up as --- if the creature is completely non-bardable.
Removed all non-bardable flags from Champions of Evil and Doom Bosses, but added no-provoke and no-areapeacemaking flags on them if they use to be noBard or noPeacemaking. However, they can be provoked onto by lesser creatures.

Halved Discordance debuff vs. any creature with a barding difficulty of 160.0.
Example: a bard with 120 discord normally debuffs a creature by 28%. However, against a creature that has a barding difficulty of 160.0, the bard will debuff the creature by 14%.

Related to Barding, fixed issue where creatures were still highlighting as an aggressor even when area calmed.

Paragon orcs and savages will no longer attack player characters wearing orcish kin masks simply by walking near them.

Paragons will no longer attack stealthing player characters simply by stealthing near them.

Paragon creatures with a barding difficulty = 160.0 after the cap will also have the no-provoke flag. If 160.0 barding difficulty paragons are discorded, their barding difficulties will be lower while discorded. Therefore, they can be directly provoked while they are discorded.

Fixed issue where paragon shadow wisps would attack good or neutral players.

<blockquote>I'm not sure if you have Bushido or not, but here is the way parry and bushido work together:

If the player is using a shield:
Their chance to successfully parry is found using the existing calculation. However, instead of using a straight query of the Parry skill, the value (Parry – Bushido) is used. The modified Parry value is never negative.

If the player is using a 1-handed weapon without a shield, then they use the following parry formula: (all skills in the calculations should be without the decimal place, i.e. GM is 1000, 67.2 is 672, etc.)

New % Chance to Block = Parry * Bushido / 48,000
a bonus of 5% is added if Parry –or- Bushido is over 100.0 skill

Legacy % Chance to Block = Parry / 80
a bonus of 5% is added if Parry is over 100.0 skill

Use whichever chance is higher of the above 2 calculations.

If the player is using a 2-handed weapon, they use the above formulas for a 1-handed weapon except the value 48,000 is replaced with 41,140.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Wanted to give a quick update in this thread about some upcoming slayer changes for publish 29. I already mentioned the additions for the repond slayer group. However, here are some other changes as well.

<blockquote>As a side note, blood elemental slayers should spawn more common in publish 29. They use to spawn at super slayer frequency.</blockquote>

and

<blockquote>You bet. While I'm perusing the slayer code, QA suggested adding sand vortex and efreet to the elemental super slayer group. So I'll do that. QA also suggests including ice elementals for the snow elemental slayer, so I'll try do that as well. </blockquote>

(4) Other news - already posted on the Developer's Comments section of UO Stratics HERE, including the follwing bits :

(a) Leurocian confirms that with Publish 28, serpentine and skeletal dragons will no longer release pets.

(b) From EvilMantis "Party members must have loot rights in order for the party corpse to have greater percentage of loot. So just because you have a party of 10, if only one party member is actively fighting with two other solo warriors, the party corpse won't get 7/10 of the loot but 1/3. In short, only top attackers are considered."

(c) More instanced coprses clarification :

<blockquote>Comment: A couple of questions to the Developers on the new "instanced corpses" feature of Publish 28 :

1) What happens to items that can currently only spawn one at a time on monsters (the most important example is obviously Paragon chests, but there are tons of other examples : treasure maps, Clockwork Assemblies, Juka Bows, etc ...)

2) What about looting in Felucca/Siege rulesets ? Currently in Felucca rulesets it is not even necessary to get looting rights to be able to loot a creature, as long as you are willing to become criminal. How is this going to work with instanced corpses ?

EvilMantis: The answers are:
1)The unique item will go to a single instanced corpse, randomly chosen from all instanced corpses existing for that kill.
2)No more criminal looting of blue monster corpses in Felucca.

Comment: I would assume the reason why no more criminal looting on blue monsters in Felluca is because, if you does have looting right it will not be blue to you anyway. If you don't, under the proposed system your instance corpse won't contain anything, thus no harm on opening blue corpse.

EvilMantis: Yes, you have that exactly right. If you don't have looting rights, there won't be anything for you to see, so we don't display anything. We feel it would be much more confusing to show you an empty corpse container.

Comment: When i got out in a party and hunt we always have just one person looting and the rest killing. This way we do not have to stop killing to loot. Now each person MUST loot a body instead of onely one. I personally like it just they way it is in a party system.

EvilMantis: If you are actually partied, then you will only ever get one instanced corpse for your party and not everyone in the party needs to open the corpse, you can designate a collector. If you are just travelling with a group but are *not* partied then yes, everyone with loot rights would need to open their instanced corpse or the collector must wait for the three minute timer.</blockquote>

(d) From Speedman on this year's XMas gifts - "If you log in a 30 (or more) day old character anytime while Publish 28 is on the shard, you'll get the gifts."

Oaks and I are currently reviewing nerve strike, and we agreed that it is way out of whack. Publish 28 should have a balancing fix for this. However, further tweaks to it need to happen. In the meantime, please feel free to hop onto the pub 28 test center, and let us know what you think.

<blockquote>EvilMantis and I have scheduled time to look into the Archery 'fire and forget bug' this morning.

We actually had a fix for this for publish 28, but the fix was undone during SE release.

I don't wanna get too descriptive about bugs on a public board.

With that stated, the current PvP issues that I would like to see resolved as soon as we're able are the following:

Insurance Bug
Special moves automatically firing with spellcasting (the infamous stun/disarm bug)
Archery issues (fire and forget and moving shot/armor ignore as mentioned in this thread)
Adding a spellcasting delay for wands
Any remaining balancing for Nerve Strike

For publish 28, we've addressed issues such as the dismount/bolo stuff, curse being too strong, and tweaking the war mode delay.

The above is not an all inclusive list on what we'd like to address, these seem to be the high profile issues at the moment.

There seems to be some irritation from some of the posters on these boards about us not addressing bugs. I usually translate this to mean the bugs I mentioned above (not always, but that appears to be the trend as of late).

Sometimes, it's not easy to see - as a player - what all has been addressed, especially if one or more particular issues that are very important to you are not fixed.

As an example, I remember constantly hounding the dev team to fix the autorevealing whenever poison damage was delivered or the bug where musicianship over 100 was not applying a bonus to barding success. Were either of these issues game stopping issues? No. Were they important to me? Heck yes they were.

So all I ask is that you remember that we are doing the absolute best we can to make Ultima Online as good as it can be. I for one am very excited about it and its future.

Lastly, I wanted to thank all the posters for sharing their thoughts, likes, dislikes, etc. about the game with us. We may not always respond to you, but we do read, and we do listen.</blockquote>

The Confidence ability greatly increases your regeneration rate for 4 seconds when you activate it. The regeneration is stopped if you are hit during that 4 seconds, but regeneration works through poison (however, damage from poison will interrupt).

If you want some numbers, it heals for a total of (Bushido * Bushido) / 576 + 15 hit points. That's 32 hit points at grandmaster, and 40 at legendary.

The regeneration effect is in addition to the normal Parry bonus gained through Confidence: Each successful parry will heal you 1 to (Bushido / 12) hit points, and refresh your stamina for 1 to (Bushido / 5) + (Total Stamina Regeneration Gained From Items).

You can always try to find some sort of "sweet spot" with Meditation as well. The formula for mana regeneration is:

A = (15 * Meditation) + (Intelligence * 50)
if A &gt;= 1000 then A = A * 1.1
If you are actively meditating, A = A * 2

<blockquote>In production, Nerve Strike currently inflicts a 6 second unbreakable paralysis, with a 7 second paralysis immunity timer after the para wears off. It also does direct damage as described below. The incredibly long 6 second delay was only meant to be applied to NPCs -- it was never by design to apply such a long paralysis to players.
In Publish 28, we lowered it to a 2 second unbreakable paralysis, with a 10 second paralysis immunity timer after the para wears off. In addition, it also does direct damage equal to Bushido * 15 / 120 + 10. Honestly, we still feel like the move is too good.

An idea we are tossing around...

If opponent is not paralyzed, Nerve Strike paralyzes (not stuns) for 2 seconds.
If opponent is paralyzed, Nerve Strike inflicts direct damage as noted above.
Nerve Strike would do half normal weapon damage in both situations.

<font color=blue>(1) Necro Scrolls may be Scribable.</font color=blue> Leurocian posted HERE that Necro scrolls may be scribable (inscription skill) and this is being tentatively planned for publish 29 (No promises). The developers are also discussing whether to allow scribed necro scrolls to be saleable to NPCs.

<blockquote>Monday, November 22, 2004 at approximately 1:30PM PST (9:30PM GMT) we will be deploying Publish 28 server code to the Pacific shard. This is the same code that has been in test on the TC2 Pub28 Test shard since November 16th.

If everything goes according to plan, we will be publishing the remainder of the shards as follows:

Posted on Community News at UO Stratics - the link to MMORPG's interview with Oaks - HERE. The interview includes this bit :

<blockquote>MMORPG.COM: There have been two sequels to Ultima Online that have been canceled in production over the past few years. Will players ever see an Ultima Online 2 (for lack of a better name)?

<font color=red>LeCraft:</font color=red> We've already begun work on the next major product for UO. You could say that Samurai Empire was just a warm up for the new team (we just moved from Texas to EA's headquarters in California.) This is one of the finest teams I've had the pleasure of working with during my four and a half years on UO - I'm already looking forward to what I know we'll accomplish.</blockquote>.

<blockquote>
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A simple solution to that would be to institute a 30 minute time limit to get ressed when in Felucca T2A or felucca dungeons. Any player not ressed within that time (whether they are logged in or out), are teleported to Britain immediately (or immediately without seeing a thing upon re-logging in).
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

We will be implementing that type of solution in Publish 29 or Publish 30.

<blockquote>We're still in the design and planning stages. We're striving to be the best in crafting so we're approaching this cautiously and making sure that we have a solid long-term game plan before we start any part of what is very likely to be a phased implementation. There aren't likely to be any considerable crafting changes in Publish 29. Further out, I can't yet comment as we're still in the early planning phase for Publish 30. </blockquote>

<blockquote>&lt;Brekkee&gt; Good evening and welcome to another great Stratics House of Commons chat, tonight our guests are the developers of Ultima Online! Tonight’s topic is Samurai Empire. Remember that this is a development chat, and as such only questions relating to the topic will be answered.

&lt;Brekkee&gt; Please send your questions to [QT]Elm or [QT]Tolkin - to do so type /query NICK and type in the window that pops up. Questions sent to me or the developers will not make it into the lineup, so don't bother. Full logs of the chat will be up on http://uo.stratics.com shortly after the chat.

&lt;Brekkee&gt; We'll start with a brief introduction from the developers, now would be a good time to send those questions.

&lt;Leurocian&gt; Hail and Well Met! I'm Leurocian, Designer UO Live
&lt;wilki_EA&gt; Hi, I'm Wilki, UO Community Rep!
&lt;OSI_speedman&gt; I'm speedman... but i guess you could see that by my name...
&lt;Saralah&gt; Saralah...programmer
&lt;Niobe&gt; Hiya, I'm still Niobe and I'm a designer
&lt;Fertbert&gt; Howdy, I'm the Live Team Lead
&lt;Binky_EA&gt; Welcome - I'm Binky, Online Community Manager

&lt;Brekkee&gt; *Lyrian* What were the 3 sea creatures that didn't make it into UOSE, and how soon could they be added (if they ever are)?

<font color=red>&lt;Niobe&gt;</font color=red> Hi Lyrian
<font color=red>&lt;Niobe&gt;</font color=red> The sea creatures that did not make it into UOSE were a mixture of beasts from Ultima fiction and Japanese Lore
<font color=red>&lt;Niobe&gt;</font color=red> They were cut fairly early on in the project in order to focus our efforts on some higher priority designs, as much as we would have liked to keep them.
<font color=red>&lt;Niobe&gt;</font color=red> It would be fairly difficult to add these exact creatures in because they never reached an implementation stage and art is not available to quickly add them to the game.

&lt;Brekkee&gt; *ghyde* I have been adventuring in the UOSE lands on the island with the volcano, and I find the tsuki wolves seem to respawn a little faster than I can handle them - are there any plans to tweak UOSE spawn levels?

<font color=red>&lt;Leurocian&gt;</font color=red>While there are no specific plans to alter that particular spawn at this time, we do have an advanced spawner that has been in the works that we plan on debuting soon to a shard near you.

&lt;Brekkee&gt; *Phantame* Is there any chance of Cranes being made tameable? They're one of the cutest new creatures in SE and I'm disappointed I can't tame one.

<font color=red>&lt;Niobe&gt; </font color=red>They are cute, aren't they? I dig those cranes.
<font color=red>&lt;Leurocian&gt;</font color=red> We really should make them tameable Can we? Can we?
<font color=red>&lt;Niobe&gt;</font color=red> We decided that we needed to keep a particular creature, in this case the cranes, as a symbol of the Tokuno Islands
<font color=red>&lt;Niobe&gt;</font color=red> And we worked with our marketing department to select a creature that is not aggressive and could represent the new landmass.
<font color=red>&lt;Niobe&gt;</font color=red> In order to keep the crane from leaving its home, we needed to keep it from being a creature that can be tamed
<font color=red>&lt;Niobe&gt;</font color=red> so that is why the crane is not a creature that can be tamed.
<font color=red>&lt;Niobe&gt;</font color=red> I hope you get a chance to visit the cranes in the new lands.

&lt;Brekkee&gt; *LBeth* Leurocian mentioned recently that the team would be working on crafting changes for one of the next publishes. This triggered some very long discussions among concerned players. When might we expect to hear more about any changes, and will the appropriate devs make themselves available to join in discussions when that time comes.

<font color=red>&lt;Fertbert&gt;</font color=red> Let me start by quoting a post I made on Stratics this morning:
<font color=red>&lt;Fertbert&gt;</font color=red>"We're still in the design and planning stages. We're striving to be the best in crafting so we're approaching this cautiously and making sure that we have a solid long-term game plan before we start any part of what is very likely to be a phased implementation. There aren't likely to be any considerable crafting changes in Publish 29. Further out, I can't yet comment as we're still in the early planning phase for Publish 30."
<font color=red>&lt;Leurocian&gt;</font color=red>But Crafting is definitely something I want the Live Team to address soon. speedman has some cool ideas as well for crafting. We'll keep you all posted when we have more to share.
<font color=red>&lt;Fertbert&gt;</font color=red>As we fill out the high level design and start work on the design details for each phase you're likely to see additional player&lt;-&gt;developer interaction.
<font color=red>&lt;Leurocian&gt;</font color=red> Definitely.

&lt;Brekkee&gt; *Looker* SE gave us so many Japanese items, but not futons. Since the artwork is in game, is there any chance they will be made craftable?

<font color=red>&lt;Niobe&gt;</font color=red> Hi Looker
<font color=red>&lt;Niobe&gt;</font color=red> We received the futon art assets really late in the development cycle and there was a chance they would not get in at all
<font color=red>&lt;Niobe&gt;</font color=red> Fortunately we were able to use the art to decorate some of the towns and such before we had our final lock down on world building
<font color=red>&lt;Niobe&gt;</font color=red> In order to get the futons as a craftable, there's additional and significant art that needs to be done....
<font color=red>&lt;Niobe&gt;</font color=red> Also, our version of getting the bed in the game took a bit of special placement the art with other collision materials. I'm not sure it would be possible to add it without redoing the piece entirely..
<font color=red>&lt;Niobe&gt;</font color=red> So I'm not going to tell you it's impossible, but it may be lower priority than bugs and other content the live team would like to get in the game.
<font color=red>&lt;Niobe&gt;</font color=red>done
<font color=red>&lt;Niobe&gt;</font color=red> wrong window

&lt;Brekkee&gt;*C_Talanithus_UOLS* THere are still various house tiles missing, both from the AoS as well as SE tile sets. Is this something we can expect the Live Team to correct, or must we wait for the next expansion?

<font color=red>&lt;Fertbert&gt;</font color=red> The live team will work to correct the remaining problems with the existing tiles (bad lights, tiles that don't line up right, etc), but it's unlikely that we'll add too many of the "missing" tiles in the near future.
<font color=red>&lt;Fertbert&gt;</font color=red> These however will be handled on a case-by-case basis as time permits.

&lt;Brekkee&gt; *Ravenspyre* is there any plans to address the disaprity between some of the new weapons compared to the old ones, for isntance, the wakizashi, smaller, and does less damage than the katana, but has a speed of 44 compared to the katanas 46 speed. Right now fencers are favored too much in the speed department for weapons.

<font color=red>&lt;Niobe&gt;</font color=red> Hi Ravenspyre
<font color=red>Niobe&gt;</font color=red> During initial weapon balancing and through final tweaking we compared speed and damage rates to current weapons within weapon types and across the board
<font color=red>&lt;Niobe&gt;</font color=red> If you take a look at the weapon's in game, they are not all equal for dps...
<font color=red>&lt;Niobe&gt;</font color=red> If you take a look at the weapon's in game, they are not all equal for dps...
<font color=red>&lt;Niobe&gt;</font color=red> But we also adjusted for special moves associated with the weapon.
<font color=red>&lt;Niobe&gt;</font color=red> So some may have a lower dps but have a powerful special move..
<font color=red>&lt;Niobe&gt;</font color=red> With that said, we want your feedback on the weapons and weapon balancing.
<font color=red>&lt;Niobe&gt;</font color=red> And if things are really out of whack we'll want to address it.

&lt;Brekkee&gt; *Aucillion2000* A: is their any chance the skill cap could be raised for cramped ninja templates and B: will their ever be a ninja guild to buy some of the stuff you have to use the thieves guild for with out the no murder count restriction in the thieves guild since ninjas are assassins

<font color=red>&lt;MrTact&gt;</font color=red> You will probably not see the skill cap raised, no.
<font color=red>&lt;MrTact&gt;</font color=red> Soulstones were our way of addressing the skill point squeeze from adding the new professions.
<font color=red>&lt;MrTact&gt;</font color=red> There are other changes to skills planned that should address this problem as well, but I can't really talk about them at this juncture.

&lt;Brekkee&gt; *Kuja[OES]* There are still some issues with the new war system introduced with Samurai Empire, such as crosshealing problems among warred guilds in Felucca. Are these being addressed?

<font color=red>&lt;EvilMantis&gt;</font color=red> I have this very issue on my todo list.
<font color=red>&lt;EvilMantis&gt;</font color=red> Depending on circumstances, this could either make Pub29 or Pub30

&lt;Brekkee&gt; *Telnarn* Can we expect any SE themed Power Up programs in the near future? If so, what?

<font color=red>&lt;Binky_EA&gt;</font color=red> Look for some UOSE themed PowerUp! Programs coming in the VERY near future. I can’t give any specific dates at the moment, but keep an eye out on uo.com and stratics for the details.

&lt;Brekkee&gt; *Alderis* I've noticed my rune beetle after death never recovers any skill loss over 100.0 so while it might take another 200 deaths it will eventualy be down to only GM poisoning, is there any plans to allow pets to regain skill over GM?

<font color=red>&lt;Leurocian&gt;</font color=red>This is also on my ToDo. I'm going to look into this tomorrow internally and see if it is something we can slate for publish 29/30.

&lt;Brekkee&gt; *Draconi* Fictionwise, what political relationship do the Tokuno Islands have with greater Britannia? Unlike Malas the cities weren't dead when we got there - so, does it have its own government?

<font color=red>&lt;Niobe&gt;</font color=red> Hey Draconi, that's a really interesting question
<font color=red>&lt;Niobe&gt;</font color=red> We don't know much about Tokuno and it's overall political structure....Looks like a bit of a mystery to me..
<font color=red>&lt;Niobe&gt;</font color=red> I'd be interested in what all of you think about the politics and culture in the new lands!

&lt;Brekkee&gt; *agentmith* any intention of undoing the 10 mana cost for smoke bombs? Ninjas are already strapped for mana as is, I don't see how the mana cost balances anything.

<font color=red>&lt;MrTact&gt;</font color=red> The ability to hide at will, even during combat, is a powerful one.
<font color=red>&lt;MrTact&gt;</font color=red> We wanted to limit the degree to which ninjas could use this ability over a short span of time.
<font color=red>&lt;MrTact&gt;</font color=red> Requiring an item doesn't really do that, because they smoke bombs don't weigh all that much. Making the ability use mana use is the obvious candidate to create the desired effect.
<font color=red>&lt;MrTact&gt;</font color=red> So, short answer, "probably not"

&lt;Brekkee&gt; *Lyrian* Will the Siege Perilous problem with training in Ninjitsu/Bushido from 0 skill be addressed in the next publish?

<font color=red>&lt;Leurocian&gt;</font color=red> This is on my ToDo as well. So hopefully we can address this in publish 29 (no promises).

&lt;Brekkee&gt; *LBeth* Is there a chance you would make bigger Bonsai trees? They are so tiny

<font color=red>&lt;Niobe&gt;</font color=red> Aww, but they are sooo cute!
<font color=red>&lt;Niobe&gt;</font color=red> We are not able to resize the art so i don't see larger Bonsai trees coming anytime soon
<font color=red>&lt;Niobe&gt;</font color=red> But maybe if you have a really good green thumb, who knows.

&lt;Brekkee&gt; *Steel* Will there be major artifacts (such as axe of heavens, etc.) based off the new weapons? And if so, how soon?

&lt;Brekkee&gt; *elmo2* Has fame/karma been changed on lesser hiryu's before pub28 i gain fame at Glorious Lord now i get no fame from then at all

<font color=red>&lt;Niobe&gt;</font color=red> The fame and karma was adjusted downward because of a bug
<font color=red>&lt;Niobe&gt;</font color=red> The Lesser Hiryu, much less difficult compared to the normal Hiryu but had the same fame and karma levels
<font color=red>&lt;Niobe&gt;</font color=red> it was supposed to be fixed before we went live and I apologize the chance wasn't done before launch.
<font color=red>&lt;Niobe&gt;</font color=red> It still should have fairly high levels though
<font color=red>&lt;Niobe&gt;</font color=red> er and that's CHANGE not chance

&lt;Brekkee&gt; *LBeth* Will we be receiving any special items for completing Tukuno champspawns? If so what do you have in mind?

<font color=red>&lt;Leurocian&gt;</font color=red> Very possibly so....
<font color=red>&lt;Leurocian&gt;</font color=red> As far as what do we have in mind? Soon

&lt;Brekkee&gt; That will wrap it up for tonight. I’d like to thank the devs for coming! The log for tonight’s chat will be up shortly on http://uo.stratics.com&lt;Brekkee&gt;Thank you all for joining us! You can join #Ultima-Online to chat more about the game.</blockquote>

I have added my own emphasis to the parts which I feel are more interesting.

I have been quite busy irl, so I havent' had that much of a chance to post on Stratics. /php-bin/shared/images/icons/tongue.gif

Anyway, some bits and pieces.

As some of you may already know, EA is selling 7th Anniversary Items at US$1.99 each. See HERE. (I bought a Holy Sword and another Samurai helmet myself /php-bin/shared/images/icons/tongue.gif). It appears that the same website has been updated with another offer - US$12.99 for ALL 7AE items.

Already posted on the general news page at UO Stratics, Leurocian made the following comments on this thread HERE :

<blockquote>EvilMantis has slated a fix for Special Moves automaticaly hitting when a spell lands.

We also have a fix slated for the 'moving shot' / 'armor ignore' type issues as well.

Just a quick FYI</blockquote>

and

<blockquote>
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Don't forget though to upgrade the wrestling damage to 4-5 so that even fighting a person with 70 physical resist at least we will deal 1 point of damage so that the special will go off, currently fighting someone with a 70 physical suit 60% of are hits deal no damage, and thus the specials don't go off against the opponent.
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<blockquote>
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Oh yea, leurocian, make sure you include the reflect physical damage thing to. Even though you can bypass easily with a 100% elemental weapon (aka no phsyical damage) a mage who has a special set up and reflects any damage back will use the special automatically.
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I just spoke with EvilMantis, and this should be addressed as well with the fix. </blockquote>

<blockquote>A fix is also slated for throwing bolas while in animal form. </blockquote>

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